Many data centers have fire suppressant apparatus located in proximity of their data storage systems. During a fire-suppressant event, high-pressure gas discharges could potentially cause the disk drives of the data storage systems to become “not ready.” The high-pressure gas discharge can impart high frequency, high acceleration vibrations to the cabinet of the data storage system. The vibration reaches the disk drives and can cause the head of the disk drive to move off-track.
After a number of failed write or read attempts, the disk drive will designate regions of the disk drive platter as non-functional. Data storage systems experiencing a gas-discharge event have reported “data unavailable” (DU), and in some instances, into “data loss” (DL) errors. Enough of these types of errors can cause an entire disk drive to become “not ready” in anticipation of the complete failure of the disk drive and to provide ample opportunity to protect the integrity of data while the disk drive remains partially functional. However, if not for the gas-discharge event, the disk drive could be fully functional, and shutting down the disk drive an unnecessarily severe corrective action.